Tired of the cold weather and gray skies we decided to go to Tuscon to visit Saguaro National Monument. We had a couple of days off to do some house keeping and shopping so it was time for a bit of wandering!
At the visitor’s center I discovered King’s Canyon Wash trail which had petroglyphs where the ‘canyon rose up on either side close together’ and we were close to the trailhead. Totally unexpected – if I hadn’t picked up that book – never would have known it was there! Unfortunately Jade wasn’t allowed on the trail so Karen stayed behind with her. I scurried up the sandy wash bottom, came across one outcropping where I saw one rock with a petroglyph but didn’t stop and explore. Onward, up, over and past several dry waterfalls. After about a mile I came across a very tall “stair-step like” section (top photo). Above that was the petroglyph site with some moisture in the sand so I had to dodge a lot of bees to get some photos.
After we continued on to Signal Hill, lots more people there than the last time when it was about 40 C. Much quicker to climb the hill. Before heading home we went to the Redemption center to see if we could go down the wash, on their property, to see those petroglyphs but the center was already closed. Once we crossed the boundary into the Saguaro park again, we stopped at a trail head and walked down the wash for a bit before continuing the return journey to Mesa. Lots of reasons to return to the area.
The petroglyphs at King’s Canyon and Signal Hill are mainly Hohokam. The petroglyphs in King’s Canyon are incredibly eroded with some vandalism. Lots of vandalism occurred at the Signal Hill site – hopefully most of it in the past since it is now closed off to any scrambling in the boulders.
_____